Hi. I'm a lurker but I just wanted to say that, although it's true that Kinbote couldn't have known about the 'four thousand times' on the morning when he allegedly smiled indulgently, he could have nevertheless smiled indulgently at the Shades' creasing the old pillow again after having just creased it a mere two nights before even if he didn't know they'd hit the four thousand mark.


A. Antonoff



On May 12, 2013, at 4:09 PM, laurence hochard <laurence.hochard@HOTMAIL.FR> wrote:

I wonder if anybody has ever noticed a slight inconsistency in Kinbote's account of his spying on the Shades.in his note to line 181:
"On another trip to the bathroom one hour and a half later, at sunrise, I found the light transferred to the bedroom, and smiled indulgently, for, according to my deductions, only two nights had passed since the three-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-ninth time - but no matter."
He alludes to "At least / four thousand times your pillow has been creased / by our two heads (l 275/6)" of course, but at the time of his spying, he couldn't know since he hadn't read the poem  and therefore, he can't have smiled indulgently; he can only do so in retrospect, when writing his commentary.
Could the inconsistecy be deliberate, here as well as about Kinbote's birthdate? Did VN want to discreetly blur the time landmarks so as to maintain ambiguity as to the identity of the characters? Or are they simply mistakes?

(Apologies if the subject has already been discussed on the forum; I searched the archives but didn't find anything)

Laurence Hochard
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Google Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal" Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options Visit AdaOnline View NSJ Ada Annotations Temporary L-Soft Search the archive

All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.